CSUN was chosen as one of five campuses to engage in the Chancellor’s Learning Lab for Improvement "CSU Educator Preparation Diversity Initiative".
The goal of the initiative, under the leadership of Julie Gainsberg, Chair of Secondary Education, was to steadily increase diversity of our teacher credential programs, specifically from Black and Latinx communities, through our recruitment efforts. Our goal was to increase Black and Latinx applicants to CSUN's multiple-subject, single-subject, and education-specialist programs combined, from 3% Black and 37% Latinx of the total rates from 2016-2019 to 4% and 45% of the total by fall 2021. We engaged in a number of recruitment activities, including sharing a teacher infographic with students who had viewed our Teaching Inspires Facebook Ad campaign; sharing the infographic with academic advisors, the CSUN Student Outreach and Recruitment team, at credential office information sessions, and with the recruiter representing CSUN at the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) conference; calling students with partially completed applications for high touch advisement and support; holding a Black Teachers Matter event at the CSUN Black House in collaboration with Africana Studies. We are pleased to share that we met the goal for Latinx applicants with 46.5% Latinx applicants in Spring 2021, following 43% Latinx applicants in fall 2020. We met our Goal for Black students with 4% Black applicants in fall 2020 but had a slight decrease in spring to 3.5% Black applicants. This work took place with support from College of Education team members Tina Torres, Credential Office Director, Josh Einhorn, Grants Officer, Jaclyn Kietman, Graduate Recruitment Specialist, Ian Carroll, Web Developer, Pete Goldschmidt, faculty in the Educational Psychology and Counseling Department, and Dean Shari Tarver Behring. This team has been invited to present their success at the Carnegie Summit in April 2021.